About Me

My day job was as an emergency room nurse. I retired from it in April 2009. I have been writing since I was a kid. That's a long time ago. LOL I first published with 5 short stories then into novels. I enjoy living here in the South but my original home is Bloomsburg, Pennsylvania. I have two sisters, one of whom is an artist. All of us are nurses because my dad wanted us to go into nursing because he wanted us to have a reliable job. I have to say that, no matter what the economy is doing, I've never been without a job. I guess that's a good thing. I have two pets all of which are rescue animals: the Golden Retriever Lily, and my cat, Liberty.
My previous Golden Retriever, Kate, died last year on February 13 and an hour later, my oldest sister, Marlene ("Snookie") died. It was a horrible day for me filled with grief. This February 4th, I lost my big yellow kitty, Acorn, who succumbed to cancer even after his surgery a year ago. He was quite a character and I will miss him terribly.

Saturday, August 25, 2012

Meet Author, James Hatch

First,
thank you for inviting me here, Sarah.
I’ve always admired your work and encouraging words for other authors, so I’m
especially flattered to be here.

Relative
to me, I would say I am a passionate person. When I write, I write. When I
work, I work. I am highly focused, to the exclusion of almost everything except
what I’m working on at the time. I throw myself at projects until I complete
them, regardless of the frustration. I think a lot of Ph.D.s are that way. You
have to have stamina to get through school, all the way, just as you need
stamina to complete a 300-page novel. If a person is not passionate, he or she
won’t get anything done. I am passionate, but also somewhat frivolous. I dance,
fish, write, review works by others, collect art, build things, work in the
yard and occasionally tend grandchildren. None of these things make the world a
better place, but I justify that by repeating to myself, You’ve already paid your dues. Changing the world is for the young.
At this time of life, I cherish my vote … and never waste an opportunity to use
it.

I
am very lucky in this regard. I have retired three times, and choose to never
work again. Unlike many authors who struggle to fit writing into their busy
schedules, I have the luxury of scheduling other activities around my writing.
There are times, however, when conflicts at home arise – mostly when my wife
has some computer issue or mechanical problem. My cat can also be a
distraction. We have all gradually come to a compromise. When I write, I begin
very early in the morning and continue until around noon. The cat gets to go outside
when it is still dark and my wife gets to sleep in as long as she likes. This
works for both of them. It also works for me.

How do you market or generate a
mainstream, typical reader’s interest in your books?

This
is the million dollar question, isn’t it? The short answer is that I haven’t
found the key yet. I use Facebook (personal and professional), Goodreads,
Amazon author’s page, Myspace, and Blogger, but have only recently passed the
one thousand friend level on my personal page and my professional page only has
a couple hundred “likers.” I have attended book fairs, submit to at least three
blogs per month on various sites, won local writing competitions, placed third
in a cover competition, presented at area book clubs, managed to get a half-page
spread in our local newspaper, and will be included in a central Texas magazine
(Tex-Appeal) soon, but reaching large numbers of people is almost impossible.
All I can say is I have faith in my novels, especially the comedies (The Substitute, Oh, Heavens, MissHavana! and The Training Bra). When people read
those books, they love them and laugh until they cry. That is my motivation to
keep trying. People need to know what they are missing. The whole world needs a
good laugh.

Please share some of the ways in which
you have found most effective to promote your work.

I
believe my two most effective promotion approaches are jokes and reviews, but I
could be wrong. I try to post one of my book covers with relatively clean jokes
on Facebook at least three to four times per week. The jokes are funny and I
receive lots of feedback from all over the world relative to them from my
Facebook friends. I believe I have a lot of followers associated with the
jokes, and my covers are always “out there” for people to see. I have probably
sold more books because of jokes than anything else. On a serious side, I read
a lot. I review books written by other authors and post the reviews on my site at
http://cookinwithmisshavana.blogspot.com/.
The reviews garner the attention of the individuals who follow the authors I
review, and I try to ensure the reviews are (1) fair, (2) flawlessly written
and (3) include a reference to one of my own books in the “Reviewed By” title.
The reviews also get posted on Amazon and Goodreads, so others see the by-line
as well.

Your paranormal novels are unique, even
the titles are very different. So, James,
tell us from where you get your quirky story ideas.

Quirky?
The living dead are quirky. My heroes are just plain dead. The concept for MissHavana
came to me in a dream. I had recently finished a romantic novel called Aftermath Horizon, which I still
consider one of my best, and wondered what I’d write next as I drifted off to
sleep. It hit me about 1 a.m. I woke up laughing and literally ran to my
computer to begin writing The Substitute.
The characters took on a life of their own, and I laughed all the way through
writing the book, even becoming light headed at times. The novel took only two
months to complete, and is my most successful work to date. I think that will
change when The Training Bra is
released. The Training Bra is drop
dead hilarious … in the literal sense … even more so, in my editor’s opinion,
than The Substitute.

If you could choose an animal that best
represents your inner spirit, what animal would you choose? What
characteristics do you share with your animal mascot?

Oh,
I don’t know. Maybe one of those strange looking little dogs that hot Hollywood
actresses carry everywhere in their oversized purses – even into their dressing
rooms. That might be fun. I could be pampered, and I find women fascinating.
That’s probably the reason I often write as MissHavana.
Now you know the reason we never show her face on my book covers. I am also one
of the Sweet ‘n Sexy Divas and write for that blog once each month. My
84-year-old beta reader says I write better as a woman than as a man. I’m not
sure what to make of that, since I lack many of the basic qualifications for being
female.

Tell us about your current and past
projects.

I
have written eight novels and one short story so far, with my first publishing
contract being awarded in November 2009. Three novels are Sci-Fi (The Judge, Infinity Quest and The Empress of Tridon), two novels and
one short story are contemporary fiction (Kill
Zone, “The Final Experiment” and Aftermath
Horizon), and three novels are paranormal comedy (The Substitute, Oh, Heavens,
Miss Havana! and The Training Bra).
I suspect I have been searching for a genre that fits me well, and I think I’ve
found it in paranormal comedy.

What’s up next for you? Any upcoming
releases and/or WIPs on your desk?

I
am currently editing The Training Bra
in conjunction with my editor at Solstice Publishing, CherylNichols.
I have also begun the fourth MissHavana novel called The Trophy Wife. In all MissHavana
novels, the heroine is a different physical woman, but has the same name (for
different reasons). More important, she has the same spirit … mostly evil. Her nefarious
nature gets her murdered early in each book, but there are afterlife lessons to
be learned, and, as slow as she is to change, she makes progress toward being a
better spirit. In The Trophy Wife, I
want her to make the “good spirit” transition … and become God’s main squeeze.
Just as she had a child with Lucifer in The
Substitute (Lilith), I expect she
will have one with God as well … Angel.
That will lead to the fifth novel called Sisters,
which should be throat-slitting funny.

Publisher: Solstice Publishing Printer:
Createspace Having performed a single selfless act, MissHavana
finds herself on probation in heaven. After many missteps, she discovers she
still retains the powers she had as The Queen of Darkness, and realizes she’s
on probation as much to keep her from joining forces with her daughter, The
Princess of Darkness, as anything else. The Brazilian, a large black man with a
dreadlocks beard who waxes regularly, is her “guide”, but she ignores his
advice until he’s taken off her case. Guideless and in a foreign environment,
she consorts with evil spirits from her former realm, especially Waldo, a
shadow creature so named because he’s so hard to find. She acquires a copy of
“The Angels Guide to Earth”, comes to believe she is the Angel of Death, and
returns to the surface as an advice columnist and assassin. She wreaks havoc
before God intervenes for a final showdown...which, as it turns out, isn’t as
final as most would hope.

Miss Havana’s public persona was far
from the truth because, in her capacity as substitute teacher, the small
community where she lived knew her as the breathtakingly beautiful young woman
who demanded every student learn, but in her private life, ostensibly caring
for aging parents in Chicago, she raced through the lives of powerful men,
leaving a wake of destruction…and a deep desire for revenge. Little did she
realize her conflicted life would end in a chaotic death at an early age, and
to an eternal conflict with the devil.

13 comments:

It's wonderful to have you on the blog today, James. Like you, I'm retired from my day job now and I can finally do what I really want to do. I can write in the middle of the night if I want to.I like how your inspiration to write The Substitute hit you in the middle of the night and made you laugh.There aren't that many paranormal comedies out there so your work is unique.It's such a pleasure to have you here today. I wish you huge success with The Training Bra when it's released.

Thanks for stopping by. I hope you do try "The Substitute." People who have read it, even the really straight-laced ones, tell me they laughed all the way through. If I can bring one moment of laughter into the world, then the entire effort has been worthwhile.

Yes, the suit. I try to avoid that, but my neighbor is a professional photographer and caught my wife and I as we prepared for a formal dance last year. The shoot only took about five minutes, but the result was a great author picture ... and I didn't even need Photoshop!

Your Miss Havana books are intriguing my brain cells right now. Nice to get to know you and hear some promo suggestions. Getting ready to post a 10 part thing on promo, so this has kicked my brain back into writing mode. :) Thanks.

There is probably no better gift to give an author than to say he or she intrigued your brain cells. I am truly flattered, and delighted you stopped by. You are right -- Miss Havana is an enigma ... even to me. She is so much fun when she's evil, and she just can't help herself. I just love writing from her perspective. Hope your writing juices flow like a river!

James,you are a man of many talents, interests and your picture is classy...and you have found the secret to life and happiness. Being retired! I can't wait until my husband is retired in 3 1/2 years. Sigh.Nice to read more about you, your author friend, Kathryn Meyer Griffith rdgriff@htc.net

Hi Kathryn. You are totally correct. Being retired is the best time of life. I know so many people who fear it after a life of hard work, but they shouldn't. The feeling that one "needs" to be making money passes in a year or so, and it's all great after that. My advice to new retirees: (1) don't loan anyone any money (especially family) and (2) don't take another job of any kind. Just relax. Thanks for stopping by, Kathryn. You are an amazing author.

Thank you James for the compliment. I might be a good writer in your eyes...but not, apparently, in the world's. Oh well.Oh, my husband, who hates his time-demanding and petty job, is counting the minutes until he can retire...we have all sorts of plans and can hardly wait. RV and travel. I might even stop writing.I stopped working full time (as a graphic artist) 11 years ago...and it took me until now, because I start getting SS in October, to stop "feeling guilty" for not making money. Even with all my books out my funneled down royalties are very, very small. Sigh. I get great reviews but sales are low. I'm self-publishing my 16th novel, though! DINOSAUR LAKE. Wish me luck. Have a great day, James. Keep writing! Kathryn